When you work in IT, you can expect to have to be on-call for when something breaks, and sometimes that means bringing your phone and laptop with you when you’re out of the office.

What would you do if one IT manager told you not to bring your equipment anywhere besides work and home, but then your manager needed to get ahold of you while you were out of town on vacation?

That is what happened to the IT professional in this story, so his manager ended up having to ship him his equipment using a same-day currier service, which cost thousands.

Check it out.

You are not to take the company phone and hardware wherever you go. Sure, okay. End up spending $6k to get those to me in an emergency.

At a previous job, I worked in a company that was regulated by multiple powerful government agencies.

When they ask for something, they want it pronto, and if the delay was too long, they’d rather have us shutdown business rather than wait for data, information or prototypes.

At least they provide the company phone.

I was given a company phone, that I had to take everywhere with me. Rotating on-call periods, but I’m expected to be available if stuff hits the fan. The phone was a special kind of a phone from a fruit company, based in California.

It wasn’t a US based model, it had two different networks and with some extra tech in it, could jump on whichever was stronger, and maybe even use both at the same time.

I’m not sure, but it was good. Needless to say, it should have been pretty expensive.

Getting out into the great outdoors is wonderful.

Now, I love nature. I can and have gone camping, oftentimes in remote places, and gone a few days without seeing another human.

18 months into the job, there was a new schedule where I got 3 days of being on-call and expected to work a regular 8hr day, having to live within 20 mins of work, and then four days of being off.

That does seem like a great schedule.

This worked pretty amazing for me. As soon as next on-call team doing and maintaining the same work from our dept got on, I’d be off, on a plane to get another national park under my belt or some remote state parks, or whatever I had my sight on.

I thought it’d be helpful to carry the company phone I was given along with me, in case I was needed. In the year and a half, I was never contacted when not being on-call, as we had a strong culture of communications and the teams knew what they had to know in order to troubleshoot.

But, nevertheless I took the company phone along with me.

Hey, this type of thing happens sometimes.

During the trip, the screen got damaged. Not so much that the phone was inoperable, but definitely difficult to use.

Got back, went through the forms and got IT to repair or give me another one.

Some manager high up in IT went off and was going on and on and on, about how expensive those devices were, how difficult it was to configure them and how much harder it was to get them in US and all other stuff.

Well, that will be less work for him.

Then she told me, I am not to take the company phone and hardware along with me wherever I go, it is supposed to go between my residence and the office and nowhere else.

And she was pretty derogatory about it, even throwing a few large chunks of racism in between. I shot off an email later, keeping my manager in the loop and the dept head, about confirming what she said.

Cue, my malicious compliance.

A nice long vacation is always a good feeling.

A few weeks later, I took my PTO. PTO policy was pretty good and thus I took off for three weeks, and still had over three weeks remaining.

I did not take any of the company hardware along with me. As per what was stated by some manager who was somewhere in the org chart in IT. And decently high up.

Sometimes, everyone is needed to pitch in.

All hands on deck situation arose. My manager was mad at me not being able to answer the company phone.

It wasn’t like I was in the woods, I was at my very dear cousin who just had twins and a very difficult delivery. I took care of my cousin while her husband looked after the kids.

Wow, they really needed him.

My manager had to get me on my own phone, and she had to go through some of my work friends for my personal phone, since I was pretty good at not giving out my personal contact info to people at work.

Manager “Why aren’t you answering the company phone?”

This should be pretty obvious.

Me “I’m not at home. Don’t have my company phone with me.”

Manager “Never mind, get back online immediately, we have an all hands on deck situation.”

Me “Sorry, I do not have any of the company hardware with me.”

Well, what did she expect?

Manager (being mouthy) “Why (a bunch of expletives)?”

Me “This manager in IT, said I wasn’t to take company hardware along with me wherever I go.”

Manager “What? When did that happen?”

Good thing he documented everything.

Me “I sent an email, stating what she said and kept you and X (our dept head) in CC”.

Manager (goes through her email, finds it and a bunch of more expletives) “You need to come back immediately.”

They can’t just tell her to cancel her PTO.

Me “sorry, no can do. My cousin’s still pretty much half dead with a very difficult twin pregnancy. I’m taking care of her, and I was pretty clear about it before going on PTO, I wouldn’t be able to come back.”

Manager, cuts off call, calls me back in 30.

Umm, why does he need to know this?

Manager “Do you have anyone who has keys to your apartment?”

Me “Yes.”

Manager “Give me their contact. I’m going to get the computer and a screen, and UVW (other hardware) shipped to you before night and you can get back. We have a serious situation.”

His whole vacation was interrupted, he definitely deserves the time back.

Me “Can I get more PTO then to compensate for this intrusion?” (me knowing, I have the slightly upper hand and striking when the metal’s hot)

Manager “sure, I’ll send an email, approving this”.

Wow, that is some expedited shipping!

By 8pm, I get my company phone, computer and other hardware shipped to me. I also get two emails. One email approving the extended PTO, for this intrusion.

Second email from my dept head X, stating that the original company policy is still in effect, in fact a new policy has been put in place, for some employees to have their company hardware with them, even on PTO.

Anything else said by anyone else was to be disregarded. And cherry on top, that IT manager was in CC.

I bet nobody was sorry to see her go.

When I returned from my PTO, that IT manager was nowhere to be seen. Turns out, she had been demoted, she couldn’t digest that and quit.

The company had to spend over $6k to ship it on the same day, and get the hardware to me.

Wow, this guy must have some very important knowledge for the company to go through all this! Being irreplicable is a good position to be in!

Let’s see what the people in the comments think about it.

It would have had to be cheaper to fly out.

This person had an intimidating experience that was quite similar.

Now this is just stupid.

Getting that PTO compensation was important.

This commenter says to just give employees the equipment they need.

Now that was an expensive mistake.

Oh well.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.